The coking oven of the above type is a horizontal chamber oven for self-feeding operation from a hopper above it and having a multiplicity of coking chambers disposed adjacent one another in a long line. When the coking chambers are filled from coking coal carriages, pointed mounds of material build up in the coking chambers under the coal feed openings; these mounds must be leveled so that the space in the coking chamber can be properly utilized. Leveling devices are used for this purpose, being almost always disposed on the machine side of the coking chambers, that is, on the side near the coke pressing machine, either on a movable carriage of their own or on the coke pressing machine itself. For leveling, the leveling rod of a leveling device is introduced into the interior of the coking chamber through an opening, called the leveling opening, in the upper portion of the door near the machine of the particular coking chamber and is then moved back and forth inside the coking chamber so that the pointed mound of material is levelled off. After the leveling operation is finished, the leveling rod is retracted back out of the coking chamber, and the leveling opening is closed in a largely gas-tight manner by means of a leveling door. The leveling door comes to rest in a sealing manner on the leveling door frame provided on the oven door; typically, the sealing action is obtained by means of sealing frames made from band iron.
Like the doors and door frames of the coking chambers themselves, the leveling doors and leveling door frames of coking chambers become soiled with particles of coke and tar that stick to them. This soiling is not as serious as that of the doors and door frames of the coking chambers themselves, and so manual cleaning from time to time was previously thought adequate. Hand-guided scrapers were used as cleaning tools. It will be appreciated that such unpleasant work was generally done quite seldom.
An increasing awareness of environmental considerations and more stringent regulations having to do with protecting the environment have had the effect that even the relatively low emissions through the leveling doors and leveling door frames of the coking chambers of a coking oven resulting from soiling can no longer be considered acceptable. On the other hand, increasingly stringent occupational safety rules do not allow cleaning of the leveling doors and leveling door frames with manual cleaning devices at shorter intervals. It is accordingly the object of the invention to provide a largely automatable cleaning apparatus that is designed specifically for the special requirements of leveling doors and leveling door frames.